


Blow the nights off

by 00FFFF



Category: Hermitcraft
Genre: Gen, Good times, Non-human hermits - Freeform, but youll see more of that soon hopefully, formatting at 2AM, he totally just wanted to hold hands with Iskall there, i am LIVING for sleepy fruit bat vampire mumbo ngl, im also living for non-human hermits, just some bros helping each other out, mumbo is a spoon, season 6, sorta saturator events but sorta not, vampire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:28:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22381078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/00FFFF/pseuds/00FFFF
Summary: Mumbo is a vampire. He is also a very big spoon. It takes Iskall outright saying it to him that he finally realizes. Luckily, Iskall has been working on a machine that is supposed to fix exactly these kinds of problems.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 97
Collections: Non-human Hermits





	Blow the nights off

Mumbo yawns and stretches. His head hurts like crazy. He recognizes he’s laying in his own bed. How did he get here? Did he respawn? What was he doing last night? He vaguely remembers a strange, colorful machine, and the image of an angry out-of-place witch. That’s about all he can recall before his growling stomach calls him into action.  
He takes a deep breath, and rolls himself out of bed. The clock on the wall tells him it’s already way past noon, but it still feels way too early for him.   
Mumbo makes his way to the bathroom. He splashes cold water in his face, and looks up in the mirror.

Oh.

_Oh?_

He rubs his eyes, as if it would somehow fix the problem.

Where was his reflection?

Mumbo presses his hand to the glass surface, but it’s not reflected from the other side. He double checks the piece to make sure that it’s actually a mirror, and not a dumb prank by a certain hermit.  
And although it’s funny to see floating cups and toothbrushes, it doesn’t do anything to calm his nerves. 

Was he invisible? Did he ingest a potion of- Mumbo mentally slaps himself for not thinking about that possibility earlier. He runs downstairs towards his kitchen, looking for a bucket of milk.

Chucking the third empty bucket away, Mumbo begins to lose hope as he stares into the reflection of his bathroom. He looks at his hands. He can see them. He could see them when he woke up, too. _Duh_ . He was never invisible in the first place. _Idiot_ , he thinks to himself.

What was it, then? A glitch? Another bug with a new minor update? Were any of the other hermits experiencing this, as well? He groans. He’s way too tired to be thinking clearly.

He decides that he should probably just try and get on with his day. He’s lost a lot of daylight just sleeping, and certainly didn’t win any with his escapades with the mirror. He stares into his food chest, not really feeling an appetite for golden carrots or cooked chicken right now.  
He reaches for a stack of watermelon slices instead, devouring half of it before he even leaves his base.

He doesn’t notice it at first, because it was so subtle.  
But the sun was definitely working hard, today. As he was working on a new redstone project over at the industrial area, Mumbo only started panicking once his hands were the same color as the dust he was placing down.

_Goodness me, I look like a Brit after returning from a holiday!_

He darts into his AFK bunker, cursing the fact that he didn’t place any form of roofage above his construction site. Being under the protection of his small iron fortress did wonders for his scrambled, sleepy mind. Maybe he should just lay down, only for a moment...  
_No,_ he thinks. _There’s circuits to be built and farms to operate._ He’s slept for so long, already! _Come on, Mumbo. Pull it together! Have another snack and then think about what you could-  
_Mumbo looks through his inventory, and realizes he’s run out of watermelon. _It’s like they’d just melted!_

If he remembers correctly, there was a food truck over in Hermitville, they should be selling some. Eager to get out and about again, Mumbo plops a diamond helmet on his head, hopefully that should save him from the relentless sun, if at least for a little while.

Mumbo bites into a juicy red apple. The truck was all out melony goodness, but he supposes that these will do. _Huh_ , he never realized how good apples tasted before. He doesn’t remember being a fan of apples, in the first place. Just more of a carrot kind of man, he supposes. He tosses the fifth core away into the bushes, spotting Iskall working on some big contraption in the distance.

Iskall stares with open mouth as Mumbo approaches him.

Mumbo gives him a sheepish smile. From the mirror thing when he woke up to being sunburnt like crazy, to suddenly finding himself craving apples like water, he doesn’t really know where to start. His mustache must look pretty unkempt, too. He can only imagine what the bags under his eyes must look like.

“What... What has happened to _you?_ ” Iskall chokes out. He looks perplexed.

“Yeah, I mean... Good question. Funny you should ask,” Mumbo begins. “I, I don’t know? I can’t see my reflection in any mirror, for a start.”

Iskalls eyes widen. “You can’t- you don’t see-” 

Mumbo nods, feeling a bit foolish. “Weird, right? And now I’ve got this sunburn, like-” He holds up his hands for Iskall to see. “I look like a lobster!”

“You look- I mean... I, I dunno what to say, dude. You’re a vampire!”

Oh.

_Oh?_

Mumbo lets that thought swim in his head for a bit.

“Did you really not notice?”

Mumbo is dumbfounded. _He really is a spoon, good grief._ It all makes sense, now. The sunburn, his sleepiness, the apples. Wait, what _about_ the apples?

Iskall takes a step towards him, giving himself a closer look at Mumbo’s face.

Mumbo feels a bit awkward, being stared down by the man with a dragon head. His purple eyes seem to stare into his soul. Scratch that, he’s looking directly at his mouth. It’s weirdly intimate.

“Is... is there something stuck in my teeth?” Mumbo gulps.

Iskall holds back a laugh.  
“Y’know what, that’s really rude! I wouldn’t have been able to see it at all in the mirror, just tell me-” 

“No, no there’s nothing in your teeth. They do look funny, though.”

“What do you mean?”

Iskall rolls his eyes. “Vampire. Teeth.”  
It takes another second for Mumbo to connect the dots.

“Oh, I see.” He pokes his finger at his newfound fangs. How come he didn’t notice these before? “Yeah, that’s actually quite scary, isn’t it?”

“Do you drink blood with those?” Iskall asks half-jokingly.

“Pardon?” Mumbo brushes his finger across the tip of one of his fangs. It doesn’t seem sharp enough to pierce skin, if he’s honest.

“Do you have any creepy cravings for the warm blood of the living?” Iskall laughs.

“I don’t, think so? I’ve been eating melon all day, though.” Mumbo thinks back. “When I ran out I switched to apples. Man, I really wish there were more kinds of fruit around.”

Iskall seems relieved, and then perks up with a gasp.

“Do you want to be my test subject?”

“Excuse me?”

“I’ve been working on this machine, you see?” He gestures wildly to the monstrosity on his left. It’s a big concrete press, with smoke coming from what Mumbo assumes is the engine. He hopes it is the engine, at least.

“What does it do?”

“We’ve had things like this happen before, right? Where people just. Glitch out or change in one way or another. Especially after Demise was over, it was a whole ordeal to get everybody back to normal.” Mumbo nods. He’d tried to help all the participants out, but it hadn’t exactly gone to plan.

“So, I was thinking, right? What if there’s one machine that fixes it all in one instant? Inverted colors, unwanted DNA swaps, anything! Your entire being restored with the simple press of a button!”

“That sounds too good to be true.” Mumbo says nonchalantly.

“It should be done within five minutes!” Iskall cheers. “Do you want to be my guinea pig?” He looks hopeful. Surely Iskall must want to get rid of his weird dragon head affliction, himself.

Mumbo considers his options. What’s he got to lose, really? If he stays like this, working on his redstone might become outright impossible. He doesn’t fancy working during the night time either, not with how inconsistent he is with lighting up his builds.

And the fruit really isn’t a suitable source of food, is it?

Either he could try Iskalls machine, and help out a friend in the process. If he’s lucky, and Iskall hasn’t messed up his wiring, he might get turned back into his normal self as well.

Or he’d have to go to Xisuma, _again_ , and have him fix him up. _Again_.

Iskall has his eyebrows raised at Mumbo, clearly expecting him to be on board. “It’s your lucky day!”

“Really.” Mumbo bares his fangs at his colorful friend, who seems taken aback for a second.

“Yes! Um, you see- If you become my beta tester, you can try it for free. I won’t charge you a single diamond. I was planning on making a profit from this, you know? But your efforts and help will be rewarded and appreciated greatly.”

“Well, I suppose... I suppose…” Mumbo sighs. What _is_ he supposing? “I suppose- Yeah, I guess. Let’s do it?” He isn’t quite convinced himself. “And this machine will be finished in five minutes?”

“Five minutes.” Iskall confirms with a smile.

He doesn’t know how much faith he should have in something that’s supposed to be done in _five minutes_. But he feels he has to trust his friend. Iskall’s been dealing with his dragon head for so long now. If this machine really worked, he could finally get rid of it. Compared to him, Mumbo’s predicament was but a moment it time. A bad day, as they would say. Really, he could deal with it for a little while.  
He still waits it out in the shade, though.

“So I just stand in the middle, press the button, and things magically turn me back to normal?”

“It’s not _magic,_ silly. It’s all science. Molecules and redstone, and stuff.” 

He’s still reluctant.

“Listen, it’s not that I don’t have much faith in what you’ve done here, it really sounds impressive. It really does. You’re an ambitious man, Iskall, I’ll give you that.”

Iskall raises an eyebrow questioningly.

“But we’re _both_ in the same kind of predicament, right? Me with my vampire-ness... and you with your dragon head thing. Right?” 

“This is true, yeah.”

“D’you see where I’m going with this? Why don’t we _both_ beta-test it. At exactly the same time?”

“Together?”

“Together.”

Iskall cracks up, and Mumbo can’t help but laugh, too. He’s a little less hesitant to step into the big machine, even though he can see beads of sweat forming on Iskall’s forehead. Perhaps that was just from him working in the sun all day.

“Okay, it’s a deal. Let’s do it.”

Iskall’s laugh has a nervous undertone, but he steps into the machine without a second thought. Mumbo finds himself standing in front of the closed door, staring at the handle.

“Um. Iskall?” He clears his throat.

“Yes? What’s wrong?”

“Could you... Invite me in, please?”

“For real? Come on in, bro.” He holds open the door. Mumbo steps inside with a relieved heart. Being out of the sunlight feels good, too.

Iskall catches his attention, motioning at the button on the floor. “This has not been tested yet, just saying. This is the first time.”

“Stop saying that! You’re making me more nervous!” But Iskall has already activated it. The lights start spinning.

“Here we go!”

Pistons extend, note blocks play a haunting tune on repeat, hoppers click and lights are blinking. The overwhelming amount of stimuli are making Mumbo feel dizzy.  
Smoke seeps into the chamber and with a roar the engine churns alive. The press descends upon the two redstone engineers. Mumbo’s eyes snap shut and he holds onto Iskall for dear life.  
The chamber goes dark. Mumbo holds his breath. After a few seconds, the contraption extends again. He is relieved to find that it doesn’t hurt. The lights stop blinking, and the music dies down.

Mumbo doesn’t dare open his eyes. Not yet.

“Is it done?”

**Author's Note:**

> Heyyyy cheers for making it to the end of this fun little project! I thought I’d challenge myself with this one: See if I can finish a oneshot in a single day. I woke up this morning with the idea for this fic, and just rolled with it. I hope you enjoyed!!
> 
> Title from ‘Turn the Lights Off’ by Tally Hall ;)


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